Commonwealth v. Feliz
119 N.E.3d 700
Mass.2019Background
- Defendant pleaded guilty to possession and distribution of child pornography and was sentenced to five concurrent five-year terms of probation; two concurrent 2½‑year jail sentences were suspended for five years.
- Under G. L. c. 265, § 47, the sentencing judge imposed mandatory GPS monitoring as a condition of probation; defendant had previously been on pretrial GPS monitoring and experienced frequent alerts.
- The defendant was classified by the Sex Offender Registry Board as a level one offender (low risk of reoffense) and had no history of contact sex offenses or parole/probation violations.
- After an evidentiary hearing with expert testimony and operational evidence about the Commonwealth’s ELMO GPS system, the trial judge denied the defendant’s motion to waive GPS monitoring; defendant appealed.
- The Supreme Judicial Court considered whether mandatory GPS monitoring imposed by statute is a constitutionally reasonable search under art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and the Fourth Amendment.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether mandatory GPS monitoring under G. L. c. 265, § 47 is a search requiring individualized reasonableness | GPS/Government: GPS monitoring can be a reasonable, programmatic, suspicionless condition of supervision to protect public and aid rehabilitation | Feliz: GPS attachment and continuous location tracking is a search; art. 14 requires individualized balancing before imposing non‑minimally invasive searches | Court: GPS is a search and not minimally invasive; art. 14 requires individualized reasonableness determinations before imposing GPS monitoring |
| Whether blanket statutory imposition of GPS monitoring is constitutional | Commonwealth: statute serves public safety and rehabilitation interests and is rationally related to those goals | Feliz: statute is overinclusive and unconstitutional as applied when no particularized justification exists | Court: Statute is overinclusive; mandatory, non‑individualized GPS monitoring violates art. 14 as applied to this defendant |
| Whether GPS monitoring was reasonable as applied to this defendant given his low risk status | Commonwealth: GPS aids investigation/deterrence and may verify compliance | Feliz: low risk, no history of violations or paraphilic disorder, no exclusion zones, and limited operational real‑time utility—privacy intrusion outweighs benefits | Court: On these facts (level one, no history, limited monitoring utility), GPS monitoring was unreasonable under art. 14 |
| Whether defendant’s signed probation/GPS contracts amount to consent waiving art. 14 protections | Commonwealth: defendant accepted conditions by signing probation order and GPS forms | Feliz: consent coerced in context of avoiding incarceration; signing does not validate an otherwise unreasonable search | Court: Signing does not cure an unconstitutional search; art. 14 analysis is unchanged by the defendant’s assent |
Key Cases Cited
- Grady v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368 (2015) (attaching a tracking device to a person is a search; reasonableness must be assessed)
- Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018) (detailed, long‑term location data implicates heightened privacy concerns)
- United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012) (GPS tracking gathers extensive information about movements; physical attachment of device is a search)
- Commonwealth v. Guzman, 469 Mass. 492 (2014) (upheld G. L. c. 265, § 47 on due process/rational basis grounds but did not resolve Fourth Amendment/art. 14 search issue)
- Commonwealth v. LaFrance, 402 Mass. 789 (1988) (probation conditions cannot eliminate art. 14 protections; individual searches require reasonable suspicion)
- Belleau v. Wall, 811 F.3d 929 (7th Cir. 2016) (GPS monitoring reasonable where defendant posed high risk and offenses were severe)